P L D 1964 W (PLP)

S. 33‑Document registered and delivered to vendee‑Sub‑Registrar not competent to order produc tion of such document before him. Thakar Das and others v. The Crown A I R 1932 Lah. 495 ref. This is an application presumably made under section 56 (1) of the Stamp Act. The material facts giving rise to it are briefly as follows:‑ The document in question purporting to be a deed of sale was executed in favour of the petitioner Anwar Sultan widow of Diwan Asghar Ali in 1951 for certain consideration and registered ac cordingly. Nine years later in 1963 an application was made to the Registrar that the consideration given in the sale deed was low and a fraud has been practised on Government so as to escape assessment of stamp duty. The Sub‑Registrar issued a notice to the petitioner to produce the document. The deed was accordingly produced and the Sub‑Registrar proceeded to hold an inquiry regarding the market value of the land involved in the deed or sale. As a result of this inquiry he concluded that the market value of the land was as high as Rs. 60,000 and not Rs. 8,000 as given in the sale deed. The Sub‑Registrar then impounded the document and recommended to the Registrar that a penalty 10 times the duty should be levied under section 35 (a) of the Stamp Act. He also recommended that Anwar Sultan should be prose cuted under sections 62 and 64 of the Act and the Registrar accept ed the recommendations and ordered accordingly. The present application has been made to set aside these orders of the Registrar regarding the institution of criminal proceedings and recovery of penalty at 10 times the duty amounting to Rs. 19,540. The main point that has been taken up before me is that section 35 (a) of the Act is not applicable to the facts of this case. This plea is admitted by the learned Government Advocate but he contends that the order of the Collector was passed under section 33 of the Act. It is argued on the other hand that once the document had been registered, the Sub‑Registrar was not competent under any provisions of the Stamp Act to call upon Anwar Sultan to produce it. This production for that reason would be illegal, the document not having been produced before the Sub‑Registrar in the performance of his functions. The case thus does not fall within the purview of section 33. The entire proceedings it is contended are illegal for these reasons and ultra vires of the Stamp Act. Reliance is placed in this behalf on Thakar Das and others v. The Crown (A I R 1932 Lah, 495), a case decided by a Special Bench of the Lahore High Court. The main circumstances in that case were almost identical. A document purporting to be a deed of dissolution of partnership and stamped as such under Article 46 of the Act was registered without any objection having been raised at the time regarding stamp duty. It was returned to the executors but subsequently in the course of inspection the Registrar was of the view that the document was in reality a deed of partition and should have been stamped under Article 45 of the Act. The executants were called upon to produce the deed. This was done and the Collector proceeded to impound it and called upon the executants to make up the deficiency in duty along with the penalty. The executants preferred a petition to the Financial Commissioner as the Chief Controlling Revenue Authority, who then made a reference to the High Court. The High Court held that in the circumstances of the case the document was not produced nor did it come before the Registrar in the performance of his functions as it was produced in compliance with a demand which was illegal and section 33 did not confer any authority on him to take action. In arriving at this decision the learned Judges had also examined the existing case law. Incidentally they also held that the Financial Commissioner was competent in such cases to interfere in revision. The learned Government Advocate has not been able to controvert the above argument nor has he shown me any ruling to the contrary: I would accordingly admit the revision petition and hold that the action taken by the Registrar/Collector under section 33 of the Stamp Act is ultra vires of the Act and set it aside. K. M A. Revision accepted.